Offbase Broken
by FallAway
Summary: Rory. This is not who Rory Gilmore is supposed to be. This is not who she’s supposed to be with. Prequel to Baking Chocolate. Oneshot.


Summary: Rory. This is not who Rory Gilmore is supposed to be. This is not who she's supposed to be with. Prequel to _Baking Chocolate_. Oneshot.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own them. Leave me alone.

A/N: So, I was in a really crappy mood because one of my best friends is a total flake. Therefore, in order to make myself feel better, I wrote this … and Hider freaked out and decided it needed to be a multi-chapter. But, me being who I am, I decided to instead make it a separate oneshot that is the prequel to a new multi-chapter fic that I will probably start posting sometime this week. The more reviews I get, the more likely I am to write that fic. So get to it, people!

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This is not the way that it is supposed to be.

What an understatement that is. She spends her nights staring at the ceiling, hugging the covers to herself and trying to figure out where the fuck she went wrong. It's sort of a difficult process, considering the past three years of her life.

Sleeping with Dean, meeting Logan, kissing Logan, fucking Logan, stealing a boat with Logan; Logan, Logan, _LOGAN._

He sleeps next to her and she wants to vomit, can feel the bile rising in her throat, ensconcing her tonsils and burning her tongue, but if she lets it out it'll never stop and she hates herself for doing this, for doing him, for being this _thing_ that she doesn't even recognize.

Broken is an understatement, yet it's so fucking off base she's not sure what to say about herself. Herself. Funny word; she's not herself, she hasn't been since high school, and back then it was an Italian boy with a Hemingway fetish who was swallowing her whole through the skin of her neck.

She misses that boy.

She misses herself.

She misses her mother.

Logan stirs next to her and presses a kiss against her shoulder, assuming she's asleep – as he always does – as he wanders into the bathroom to get ready for a late night out with the boys. He comes back at four in the morning scented like six different women, and she _knows_ that she's giving him a break by smelling so few.

This is not who Rory Gilmore is supposed to be. This is not who she's supposed to be with. This is not the plan she had when she was five, nor when she was ten, nor fifteen when she was kissing Dean and trying to figure out why it made her so giddy.

When she was sixteen she met her future, and he sent her reeling with a simple smirk or a slow, mocking, drawled comment about her boyfriend. He supported her one hundred _fucking_ percent, and she didn't know what she had until he was gone, gone, _GONE._

California.

Philadelphia.

Hartford, New York, _22.8 miles_, Stars Hollow, _Kerouac_, dirty sheets and prick blonde boyfriends and drunken binges and bitter bridesmaids and THIS is not who she is.

Was.

Whatever the fuck, does it matter anymore?

Broken, bleeding, popping, crashing, leaving, _dying_, fucking, flying, losing, winning, _lying_. It's a pattern she has yet to pick up and Logan is leaving and the door is closing with a click she can't hear but it's there, it's there, and it hurts like FUCK but she can't do anything to change it.

It's not her book to write.

He already did that, and she keeps it next to the bed, and she reads it at night when her _boyfriend_ is gone and she wants to call him but she lost the number and Luke isn't Luke because April spends time in the diner and her mother won't talk to her and the dog thinks she's scary and this just fucking SUCKS.

She can't remember how to cry.

Not that it matters. It doesn't help, just makes her look puffy, and her blue eyes glow behind a sheen of tears that can't seem to fall no matter how much she blinks. It's like she's dry inside and losing everything she always took for granted, and she hates tears but she misses them now. She misses so much that she can't have back.

Her cell phone vibrates and it's probably Paris, because Doyle is an idiot and the blonde can't handle love and Rory's not much better so she's not sure why she's considered an expert when she's clearly – so painfully fucking clearly – not.

When she falls asleep she thanks the Lord, but she's not a Godly person so he probably doesn't care.

Logan comes back earlier than usual.

She knows because she's still asleep, and she always wakes up right before he opens the door. With a look at the clock she knows it's only three a.m., and she thinks he's either dying of cancer or bored with the local girls that he _fucks_ every week.

He notices her open eyes – for once, oh, _shocker_! – and kisses her gently. She gags on his tongue but he doesn't notice and she lets him screw her because she just wants to _feel_.

But it's the wrong back she's clawing at.

Her hands scratch painfully at the skin of his shoulders and he moans against her neck and she wants to vomit because this is wrong, wrong, _WRONG_ and his hair is the wrong color and his eyes aren't dark enough and she hates this, hates him, hates herself – no, this _thing_ she's become – and it's stupid and careless and she cries when she comes because he shouldn't be able to touch her like this.

_Jess_ made her fall apart first.

Her mother didn't know, Luke sure as _hell_ had no clue, Dean was suspicious but never had evidence, and Logan will never find out.

Lane knew.

Lane squealed.

Lane asked for details that a very shy, very naïve, virginal, innocent, NORMAL Rory gave her with a blush that she doesn't have anymore. He incited a shade of red she didn't think humans should be capable of turning, and she misses that shade like she misses his hands.

Good fucking Lord, those _hands_. Callous fingers and gentle caresses and smooth fingernails that made her quiver and shake and giggle and moan and breathe his name in dark corners and a twin bed that's been branded by another man's sweat since then.

She misses him.

And Logan is wiping her tears away and she's done.

Done, done, _done_ with the bullshit of being his girl.

So she swats his hands away and shoves him off of her, jumping out of bed and gathering her clothes from dinner that night, not caring, not caring that they're skimpy and glittery and completely not her.

Because she's not herself, so she might as well dress this new part.

Logan grabs her arm as she grabs her keys and she jerks away from him, screaming in frustration and annoyance and anger and angst and pain and betrayal and _lies._

The phone number brands itself in her mind as soon as Luke reads it to her and she thanks him in a murmur as she apologizes for waking him before dialing it with shaking fingers that remind her of that time.

That time when she first fell over the edge of orgasm.

That time when Jess' hands had been her means of travel to a land of bliss and white light and screams and laughter and darkness she almost can't remember anymore.

Dean didn't send her quite that far.

Not really anywhere, actually.

Logan was close – that first time – and after that he got lazy and sex wasn't about her anymore.

It was about him. Him, him, HIM, and his slutty one-night stands and bitter bridesmaids and strip-joint whores.

The car swerves when she jumps when he answers the phone and she takes a deep breath before begging him for his address and confessing that she's on a highway and she nearly just hit a cherry red Mercedes in her pursuit of contacting him and he laughs sleepily into the phone and she stops talking and tries to calm the fuck down.

He tells her where he lives without any other questions and she silently thanks him for knowing her so well when she can't even _remember_ herself.

She doesn't kiss him as soon as she shows up.

He doesn't try and touch her.

But she breaks down crying and he pulls her into his arms and she gasps the story out against his neck.

His grip tightens when she talks about Logan.

And it tightens more when she tells him about the other girls.

Her cell phone rings and she groans painfully, because she knows who it is and she's tired of trying and it took her half the time it should have taken her to get here and she's so fucking gone she hadn't even noticed.

Logan Cell, Logan Cell, _LOGAN FUCKING CELL._

She lets out a whimper and sinks to the floor before raising herself to her knees and clawing at the battery case to make the ringtone stop playing that annoying FUCKING song that she _didn't even choose_ but Logan wanted so Logan got because she _loved_ him and it was _wonderful_ and she thought it was _CUTE_.

Jess grabs the phone from her and answers it succinctly, brown eyes burning with a protection she hasn't seen in any other guy since that night at Yale when she'd said _no_ because she _didn't love him_ and that lie was easier than the truth.

She can hear Logan yelling from five feet away.

And the man standing in front of her has gone from impassive and far away to right there and over-protective in a matter of minutes and she's so _fucking_ pissed that she didn't come here before.

He hands her the phone and she puts it to her ear while he wets a cloth to wipe her tears and _Logan_ tries to convince her to come _home_. Home. Home. Home. HA! Home is the furthest description from her _ex_ that she can think of and she laughs mirthlessly as she hangs up and throws the phone against the wall.

Jess doesn't reciprocate when she presses her lips to his.

He won't take advantage of her.

He won't let her lose herself in him, not until she's found that girl again.

_His_ Rory, _old_ Rory, _normal_, beautiful, intelligent, ambitious Rory Gilmore.

She asks him why he thinks she ever will again and he promises her he'll help her do it.

That faith, that never-ending, always-present, perfectly-executed _faith_ in her makes her _sick_ because she's missed it so much. She wraps her arms around his neck and he sighs as he holds her, and she really cries, really _feels_ it for the first time in almost a year and she thinks she can't go back there again.

185.4 miles, too far, too far, too long between here and there and her and him and she wants to stay but she's not sure if she can.

Her cell phone rings again and she holds Jess closer, murmuring nonsense against his neck and _shaking_ from the familiarity of this. He kisses her forehead and she finally calms down, the tears receding and the pain a little less but it's not gone, it's still there, and it's real and plausible and understandable and tangible and she _hates_ it but at least she can feel.

This is the real world, this is emotion, this is PERFECTION in a fucked-up broken-down over-used sense of the word. She thinks it's a hell of a lot nicer than _denial_, but she's scared as fuck and thank _GOD_ for Jess and his hands and his eyes and his words and his faith in her, in this, in them, in everything that used to drown her in ecstasy – and still does, to be honest – and she's ready to take this on again.

_Logan's_ ringtone finally stops screeching and she can't help but laugh against warm olive skin when it does.

She thinks it's time for her to re-learn the process of honesty.

Here goes _nothing_, huh?


End file.
